Writing for US TV 101 Module 3 How it works: 1. Someone sells an idea to a network (usually involving sexual favours). 2. A bunch of "writers" are given the project, and told that they will be writing under a single name. 3. The "writers" have some fun meetings, and some fun (if predictable) ideas are thrown up for the first season. 4. The first season goes well, so the "writers" start to get cocky, believing they can add any plot device their alcohol- and cocaine-ridden minds can come up with, and are having a hard time sticking to the core concept, so they start introducing concepts that should in no way be connected to the series. 5. Series 2 still goes well enough (usually because of the cuteness/sexiness of certain protagonists), so the "writers" start feeling umbrage, because they obviously deserve to be multi-millionaire mega-stars for having written a couple of dozen 40-minute episodes of a throwaway TV drama that will be forgotten in ten years' time. 6. Series 3 is sparsely written, and, because no-one is producing scripts good enough to keep the cretinous actors under control, the actors start "making the characters more like themselves". 7. Half the writers are replaced by fanboys and wannabes, and every script becomes concerned entirely with the characters, rather than being a story that the characters have to live through. 8. The series is (thankfully) cancelled. 9. A year later, everyone says "Yeah, that was OK, but it turned to sh1t." Next module: How to rip off another series, without it showing.
